Issac Asimov writes: "I was eighteen and had arrived with my first story-submission, my very first. He had never met me before, but he took me in; talked to me for two hours; read the story that night; mailed the rejection the following day along with a kind, two-page letter telling me where I had gone wrong."
"It was he who gave me the skeleton of "Nightfall," including the opening quotation, and sent me home to write the story."
With the publication of "The John W. Campbell Letters, Volume 1" by Chapdelaine, Chapdelaine, and Hay, you too can be fortunate enough to read some of those letters. Here is one sent to James H. Schmitz, accepting the submission of "The Tuvela". Insightful readers (or maybe just anyone who views the Bibliography) will have noted that over half of Schmitz's work was published by Campbell.
Spoiler Warning! You probably don't want to read this letter until after you have read The Tuvela.
James Schmitz
December 4, 1967
Dear Jim:
This is about the nth time I've tried to express what I want to say about that Tuvela yarn of yours. Some things are easy -- like it's a terrific yarn, and I'm buying it, and I'm sure the readers will give you the bonus rate on it, and of course that means we'll need a synopsis of Part I -- break it approximately in two, where you think the best break comes.
The hard problem is that I think it needs an epilogue, or something, to make some of the magnificent propositions it contains clear. You know the old rule in play-writing, "If you want the audience to get a point, say it three times at least." Or say it once very clearly, practically kindergarten level.
And this yarn is loaded with beautiful stuff that's not stated at all, and is quite obscured by reason of the single viewpoint (Niles.)
It's obvious that the Parahuans were perfectly correct in one sense -- Tuvelas do exist, and Nile, quite obviously,is one. Only the Tuvelas are far more deadly than the Parahuans imagined. In fact, they rather closely resemble Lewis Carroll's fabled Boojums, of "The Hunting of the Snark." You may remember that the trouble with Snark-hunting was that some Snarks were Boojums, and anyone who met a Boojum "Suddenly, silently vanished away!" And aside from that peculiar deadliness, a Boojum was completely indistinguishable from an ordinary Snark.
Nile is -- in a hideously literal way! -- a Boojum. From a Parahuan viewpoint, that is! A Great Palach goes to spy on her -- and fast as the Great Palachs are, he's snatched up, whopped senseless, and carted off trussed up in a bag before he can do anything whatever to her. She chooses to untie him in order to talk; he tries to attack and suddenly, permanently vanishes away. Thereafter every Parahuan that encounters her -- even their great and terrible tarms! -- suddenly, silently vanishes away. And in no case do the Parahuans have any clue whatever as to how the vanished got that way.
Literally the Parahuans learn absolutely nothing whatever about Tuvelas -- except that, like Boojum, anyone who encounters one suddenly, silently vanishes away.
They never do learn whether a Tuvela is indestructible -- they only learn that whatever Tuvelas are, Parahuans can't destroy one.
Now the reader going through the story is acutely aware of the terrific, desperate pressure on Nile. You've done a hell of a good job of putting that over and maintaining it.
But that very fact obscures the fact that the pressure on the Parahuans is fantastically greater. Look -- Nile feels desperately pressured; sure. But who's doing all the dying? Or ... are they dying? No Parahuans know; they know only that whole patrols, and even gigantic tarms, vanish without so much as a trace. (Those sea-halvers aren't going to leave anything a Parahuan could trace to a tarm, for instance!)
The civil war among Great Palachs is actually Nile's doing; the Voice of Action quite literally goes nuts because of the frightful uncertainty, the absolute inability to get any data whatever as to Tuvela-powers.
Single-handed, Nile has the whole expedition in precipitate retreat by the time her friend arrives with bombs. They were fleeing for their lives before the Federation warships arrived. The Parahuans never so much as saw her -- until she so chose voluntarily. Then she walked into their fortress unarmed, stayed as long as she chose, and left when she was ready -- taking their captive with her, and again vanished beyond their ken completely. If she *was* destructible, no Parahuan could do it.
Since to the Parahuans immortality and superior powers were in one-to-one correspondence, the idea of a mortal super-being escaped them. Also, the idea of a super-being which was physiologically indistinguishable from the normal members of its race escaped them. And finally, the idea that, in a given race, the super-beings might have super-powers of completely different types escaped them. If they had been able to get data on Nile, and comprehend what she was -- they would have been totally unprepared to meet another Tuvela, one Telzey Amberdon.
Finally, for the last two megayears at least, the male of the human species has been the warrior-hunter-fighter. He's always been bigger, stronger, more aggressive, more violent and more destructive than the female.
The Parahuan expedition was utterly clobbered by one young female Tuvela. What would have happened if they'd met a mature male Tuvela?
The humans didn't send a man against them -- they didn't even send a boy. The Parahuans were completely helpless against a Tuvela girl.
(I'm aware of your pro-feminine leanings! But the fact remains that the human -- in fact higher-mammalian -- system is based on the female being the conservator, and the male being the warrior-fighter-protector. Males can be sacrificed -- they aren't critical for racial survival; females must be protected. Evolution has concentrated strength, size, violence and aggressiveness in the male. The female has greater endurance -- but the males can hit far higher peaks of explosive violence. In an objective analysis of the race, an alien would quickly recognize that fact. Knowing that, if a young female were sent to meet their invasion, it would imply that the Tuvelas considered Parahuans so incompetent that they represented no threat, that a young female didn't need protection or defense against them.)
Now the problem is this: how can those factors be brought to the reader's attention without producing the effect of a lecture, or an anticlimax?
Dr. Cay started to bring it out in that Incubator -- but the full scope must come out after the Parahuans' total defeat.
Possibilities:
-
Since the Parahuan invasion attempt represented a threat to the entire Hub culture, it must be studied by the High Commission of the Hub as a matter of High Policy. Nile will have to be interrogated. And the High Commissioners would be Tuvelas capable of seeing both viewpoints on the problem, and pointing them out to Nile.
-
Some of the Palachs and Great Palachs escaped alive from Nandy-Cline, and reported to the Grand Palach and his council.
- Some of the non-human-non-Parahuan might-have-been allies of the Parahuan would know about the entire sequence -- their intelligence forces would not be totally incompetent! And their High Commission would need a report. Their analysis would be thoroughly objective -- and might include some intelligence reports suggesting that Tuvelas, or at least some of them, had psi powers. The affair of Telzey and Tic-toc would not have been totally covered up against competent intelligence agents.
At least they'd have data enough to realize there could be many very different types of Tuvelas, with very different powers -- for the existence of human xenotelepaths was no secret. They couldn't know but that Nile used xenotelepathy to turn the floatwood life-forms against the Parahuans -- or to mentally enslave the Parahuans to kill each other. The mutual slaughter of Palachs and Great Palachs on Nandy-Cline would suggest that....
But the critical point that the reader should be made to look at is how the affair appeared from the Parahuan viewpoint.
Nile was under desperate pressure? Haw! One girl against hundreds of enemies... and who was doing all the dying?
Regards, John
Portrait of John W. Campbell, Jr. by Kelly Freas.
A Kelly Freas private joke.
Cover of Analog, Dec. 1971.
The Tuvela
Full Color Cover by John Schoenherr,
from Analog, September 1968.
